It is good practice for me, and, with my sketch-book, will give you a better idea of my tour than these scribbles.
— from Little Women; Or, Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy by Louisa May Alcott

Here, then, it becomes obvious that not only in a dead animal, but in one which is still living, the ureters are prevented from receiving back the urine from the bladder.
— from Galen: On the Natural Faculties by Galen

However, heaven be praised, she's gone; and if I believed she was in the moon, according to a book I once read, which teaches that to be the receptacle of departed spirits, I would never look at it for fear of seeing her; but I wish, sir, that the moon was a looking-glass for your sake, and that Miss Sophia Western was now placed before it.”
— from History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

But, as the little rogue would persist in sticking one of his bare toes through a hole in the basket, it had been frost-bitten, and Thor, accidentally breaking it off, had [ 77 ] flung it up into the sky, to shine as a star, known in the North as “Orvandil’s Toe.” Delighted with these tidings, the prophetess paused in her incantations to express her joy, but, having forgotten just where she left off, she was unable to continue her spell, and the flint stone remained embedded in Thor’s forehead, whence it could never be dislodged.
— from Myths of the Norsemen: From the Eddas and Sagas by H. A. (Hélène Adeline) Guerber

THE OLYMPIAN VICE.—Despite the philosopher who, as a genuine Englishman, tried to bring laughter into bad repute in all thinking minds—"Laughing is a bad infirmity of human nature, which every thinking mind will strive to overcome" (Hobbes),—I would even allow myself to rank philosophers according to the quality of their laughing—up to those who are capable of GOLDEN laughter.
— from Beyond Good and Evil by Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

It is all confusion to begin with; but it may be all brought into order and shape, if you can only find the right way.
— from The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

Beyond the fortifications through which Athos had made a breach in order to get out, and which were composed of fagots, planks, and empty casks, heaped up according to all the rules of the strategic art, they found, swimming in puddles of oil and wine, the bones and fragments of all the hams they had eaten; while a heap of broken bottles filled the whole left-hand corner of the cellar, and a tun, the cock of which was left running, was yielding, by this means, the last drop of its blood.
— from The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

That quarter of the palace was all in an uproar; the servants ran for ladders; the monkey was seen by hundreds in the court, sitting upon the ridge of a building, holding me like a baby in one of his fore-paws: whereat many of the rabble below could not forbear laughing; neither do I think they justly ought to be blamed, for without question, the sight was ridiculous enough to everybody but myself.
— from Gulliver's Travels into Several Remote Regions of the World by Jonathan Swift

In the baptism into Christ, “by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body,” the body of Christ, “and are all made to drink one Spirit.”
— from A Bible History of Baptism by Samuel J. (Samuel John) Baird

Sometimes the money is placed in a provident fund for the workmen as a body; in other cases it is deposited in savings banks to the account of the individual workmen.
— from Problems in American Democracy by Thames Williamson

It was of great importance for the Italian instrument makers to produce a bass instrument of the violin type which had already been in use from the middle of the sixteenth century, and this certainly happened towards the end of that period.
— from The Violoncello and Its History by Wilhelm Joseph von Wasielewski

It is only in rare cases, as for example when a book is out of print, and yet valuable to the library, that a second rebinding is justified.
— from Mending and Repair of Books by Margaret Wright Brown

Weave at back is of moderately coarse grain.
— from Oriental Rugs, Antique and Modern by W. A. (Walter Augustus) Hawley

Another bed is of Lilium speciosum, planted to take the place of a bed of Sweet William, which was quite a glow of colour in the earlier part of the summer.
— from A Year in a Lancashire Garden Second Edition by Henry Arthur Bright

They consisted of a single sheet of paper, fastened with thumb-tacks to a drawing-board that was placed on top of a barrel in one of the tents.
— from Campmates: A Story of the Plains by Kirk Munroe

Mr. Lamb has succeeded not by conforming to the Spirit of the Age , but in opposition to it.
— from Hazlitt on English Literature: An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature by William Hazlitt

At the Council of Four he wore a square-tailed coat of very good, thick black broadcloth, and on his hands, which were never uncovered, gray suede gloves; his boots were of thick black leather, very good, but of a country style, and sometimes fastened in front, curiously, by a buckle instead of laces.
— from The Economic Consequences of the Peace by John Maynard Keynes

At first it was Chatwourth, to buy some tobacco and break in on the Miners’ Meeting; and then Slogger Meacham, a huge mountain of a man, came ambling down the street.
— from Silver and Gold: A Story of Luck and Love in a Western Mining Camp by Dane Coolidge